The sixteenth prelude in the relative key of B flat minor is the
boldest of the set. Its scale figures, seldom employed by Chopin,
boil and glitter, the thematic thread of the idea never being
quite submerged. Fascinating, full of perilous acclivities and
sudden treacherous descents, this most brilliant of preludes is
Chopin in riotous spirits. He plays with the keyboard: it is an
avalanche, anon a cascade, then a swift stream, which finally,
after mounting to the skies, descends to an abyss. Full of
imaginative lift, caprice and stormy dynamics, this prelude is
the darling of the virtuoso. Its pregnant introduction is like a
madly jutting rock from which the eagle spirit of the composer
precipitates itself.
In the twenty-third bar there is curious editorial discrepancy.
Klindworth uses an A natural in the first of the four groups of
sixteenths, Kullak a B natural; Riemann follows Kullak. Nor is
this all. Kullak in the second group, right hand, has an E flat,
Klindworth a D natural. Which is correct? Klindworth's texture is
more closely chromatic and it sounds better, the chromatic
parallelism being more carefully preserved.
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